Astronaut Courage Quotes

I was only a hero by default. The flights were few and far between. There weren't that many astronauts. The moon flights were so interesting and exciting.

Apollo 11 was the movie premiere of moon landings, with Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin. Neil was a bit of a mystic, but also a taciturn guy from what I can tell. He really saw the moon as looking like the American high desert. He wasn't someone who dealt in metaphors.

Every day, we get a little bit closer to the kind of expertise and the kind of experience we're going to need to go there. I'd love to be the guy walking on Mars.

The biggest honor is to be an astronaut. It's such a tremendous privilege to be able to represent humankind in our quest to explore space.

Astonishingly powerful and poignant, 'Gravity' is the rarest of rares: a space survival film informed by a genuine reverence for the awe-inspiring cosmos we inhabit.

If we die, we want people to accept it. We're in a risky business, and we hope that if anything happens to us, it will not delay the program. The conquest of space is worth the risk of life.

I think most astronauts are not risk takers. We take calculated risks for something that we think is worthwhile.

I think after orbiting for a while and looking at the surface, I think the natural tendency is to want to experience it, to go down there and touch it. I started thinking about the Apollo astronauts who orbited the moon and didn't land - that must have been agonizing!

All space exploration is risky. As an astronaut, I had to decide each and every time I went to space whether or not to risk my life for the mission.

So one thing that I want to do is to make people realize that astronauts in general are very normal people. They are down to Earth, so to speak. I know it sounds contradictive, but we are very normal people. We are very normal people with a fantastic privilege and opportunity to do something that is extraordinary.

As an astronaut, when you're getting ready to go out of that hatch, you know that's the pinnacle of both your career and your life. The view completely blows you away. The real challenge is getting past the excitement and getting focused and down to work.